Entries in Mario Monti
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The Occupy Wall Street meme of late 2011 found a vociferous welcome in Sicily last January as workers occupied highways and byways for five long days. The mass blockade—a general strike of truckers, farmers, craftsmen, shepherds, breeders, and students—was devised to cause maximum disturbance to island commerce. The Pitchforks ("i Forconi"), as the protesters call themselves, pitched a fit over high fuel prices, road tolls, and income taxes. The most bilious rage was reserved for Mario Monti, the interim prime minister of Italy, who seeks to enforce austerity with a whack of his Goldman Sachs tentacle.

Placido RizzottoJust as the occasional stabbing at an American OWS encampment is met with howls of conservatives eager to paint the 99-Percenters as violent anarchists, the Pitchforks have faced an image problem with the arrest of alleged Mafia-connected protesters. The regional president of the country’s largest trade and services association, Confindustria, was quick to cast aspersions on the movement:

"We have evidence that, in many demonstrations of blockades that are creating such difficulty in Sicily, there were proponents of the Mafia. This doesn't mean that the Mafia is inside the demonstrations, but we are worried about a real uneasiness in the people of the island; that things are controlled by persons without credibility and with dubious pasts, by infiltrations of organized crime and by other phenomena that only end up increasing a general rebelliousness that doesn't resolve problems."

Click to see the locationsGiven that much of Sicilian commerce, notably trucking and the building trades, is yoked by the Mafia, it is no stretch to imagine that crime bosses would embrace any pushback to economic change. Political parties from left to right, many standing to lose power with Monti’s sledgehammer economics, have tossed in their support of the strikes. But, in fact, the rank-and-file Pitchforks have loudly condemned the gridlocked policies of all corrupt elites—elected or mafiosi.